City of Marysville v. Poole

PLUMMER, J.

Action for unlawful detainer. Plaintiff had judgment and defendant appeals. It appears from the record that from year to year the plaintiff had leased to the

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defendant by written lease certain premises belonging to the City of Marysville, in the county of Tuba; that on or about the thirteenth day of March, 1924, the City of Marysville executed and delivered to the appellant a written lease, under the terms of which plaintiff let and leased to the appellant certain real property from the thirteenth day of March, 1924, to and including the twenty-eighth day of February, 1925. The lease was executed by the mayor and city clerk of the City of Marysville and by the appellant. The property was occupied by the appellant under the terms of said lease. Prior to the twenty-eighth day of February, 1925, the appellant asked the mayor and city council of Marysville for a new lease, but was informed that the city would not lease the property for any further period of time, and the city clerk of the City of Marysville, in writing, notified the defendant that the city would not lease said premises for any further period of time after the expiration of said lease, which would occur on the twenty-eighth day of February, 1925, as before stated. The appellant, however, continued to hold possession of the property. Thereafter, and on or about the fifteenth day of April, 1925, the plaintiff served a formal demand upon the defendant to deliver up and surrender the possession of said premises. This the defendant failed to do. Hence this action.

The defendant set forth in his answer by way of equitable defense that for some fifteen years previously the defendant had continuously occupied the premises in question under a lease made from year to year; that in all the leases there was a provision that in event the plaintiff required the land for municipal purposes all growing crops should be permitted to remain thereon until maturity and harvest, not exceeding in any case one year from the giving of notice of termination of lease; that the defendant thereafter alleges that the said lands are not-required for municipal purposes and that no notice of termination of said lease for said reason has been served upon this defendant; that a crop of barley and alfalfa was growing on said land and defendant had expended large sums of money in clearing said lands and would not have expended moneys in improving the same or sown said crops but for such understanding between plaintiff and defendant, and that said defendant